They are projecting the 2010 season to be much more active than 2009, with above-normal threats to the U.S. coastline.
Not good news for us south Louisiana dwellers.
Granted, we were fortunate in 2009 as Mother Nature spared the Gulf Coast.
Not so in 2008.
On September 1 of 2008, Hurricane Gustav hit the south Louisiana coast near Cocodrie as a Category 2 hurricane and proceeded to tear a path directly through Baton Rouge.
My Better Half, our youngest daughter, her husband and their 2 kids holed up in our house in Denham Springs to ride out the storm. Our oldest daughter, her husband and their 2 kids rode out the storm in their home about 5 miles away.
We had gone through several other hurricanes over the years, including Andrew in 1992 and Katrina and Rita in 2005, but we took more of a direct hit from Gustav.
In hindsight, we should have left before the storm hit. We did all the pre-storm preparations, including purchasing a generator, stocking up on essentials like water, ice, food, batteries and gasoline to run the generator.
So, from that standpoint, we were prepared.
What we weren't prepared for were the trees in our yard that were uprooted or snapped at the base and fell across our yard and driveway. We all huddled in the living room and watched as one by one the trees fell. Fortunately none of the 3 huge trees that crashed down hit our home.
The pictures you see above were actually taken after some of the cleanup had already been done. Our driveway was completely blocked by the fallen trees and we had to get a crew in the following day to cut enough of the debris away so we could at least get out of the driveway.
We spent the next week without power. We did have a battery powered black-and-white television so we could keep track of the news and see video of the other devastation that had been done to the Baton Rouge area and other parts of south Louisiana.
Cleanup crews from all parts of the country began arriving the day after the hurricane, but we actually contracted a Denham Springs crew to do ours. We watched as they cut our fallen trees into firewood-sized logs and stacked all the debris at the font of our property for the FEMA crews to pick up.
Even the grandkids' playhouses suffered damage from the storm - damage our insurance company actually covered !!
We managed to keep enough gasoline on hand to run the generator for a week; we cooked on the grill outside; we took cold showers every evening; and we managed to power enough floor fans to at least keep some air moving around while we all slept in the living room at night.
The important thing was that no one was injured, and the worst fate we suffered was a couple of weeks without the simple comforts we've all grown accustomed to.
We still have a few large oaks and pine trees on our property that have certainly become weakened due to past hurricanes. We were fortunate Gustav didn't inflict any more damage than it did.
I don't believe we'll take any chances and ride out the next storm.
Until next time...
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